RORA Project
For the 2007-2008, YACS will coordinate RORA, Reach Out and Read Aloud. Participants in RORA spend about a hour a week reading stories to children waiting for doctor's appointments at the UCLA medical center. We all know how nervous doctor visits can be and wouldn't it be more fun to hear Cat in the Hat before your vaccination?!?!
Reach Out and Read (simply ROR) is a national program that seeks to make early literacy an integral part of pediatric primary care. Pediatricians encourage parents to read aloud to their young children and give books to their patients to take home at all pediatric check-ups from six months to five years of age. Parents learn that reading aloud is the most important thing they can do to help their children love books and to start school ready to learn.
The development of Reach Out and Read as a national program was fostered by the Department of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center, where providers and staff seek innovative solutions to the health and development issues facing children and families from the most challenging environments. For more information about the national program, please go to www.reachoutandread.org.
Reach Out and Read Aloud (RORA) supplements the efforts of the national program, bringing volunteer readers to children's hospitals and health centers throughout California.
Not only do we introduce fun stories to little ones, but we model the importance of reading aloud to growing minds! If you would like to participate, please email Tera Forrest or Jacqueline Barry for more information or simply keep an eye out for future RORA training sessions in Fall and Winter quarters!
The California Center for the Book and the UCLA Department of Information Studies are currently working to retool our participation in the Reach Out and Read Aloud program. We welcome your input!
Nidorf Project
During the 2004-2005 school year, YALSA-UCLA (now YACS) began student involvement at the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Detention Facility in Sylmar (in the north San Fernando Valley). That involvement has grown into an ongoing volunteer project.
The Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Detention Center houses approximately 650 children and teens ages 12 to 17. Some stay as little as a couple of weeks, while others are there for a
few years. However long their stay, it is both stressful and boring. It is also the perfect opportunity to reach kids who may never have read a book cover to cover, to offer them something in the guise of entertainment that can help them make a different life, inside or outside.
Since there is no library from which the residents can obtain books, the Nidorf Collective,
a group of students and librarians from the UCLA Information Studies graduate program, solicits book donations from friends and family, libraries and schools, and delivers them to the living units at Nidorf. The group has created the “Beyond 4 Walls Wish List” on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/3GB06L568M0Y3 to collect books the kids at Nidorf actually want to read. They conduct weekly book talking groups, at which they talk about books, listen to the kids talk about books, and give books away.
The group is looking for more volunteers, to continue their present activities and expand their service. The work at Nidorf is amazing in its effects—on the kids and on the volunteers. It is also a learning opportunity unlike any experienced in graduate school. The group also welcomes participants from other graduate schools and from the library community, so spread the word.
Although YACS and the Nidorf Collective share many members, they are not officially related. For more information on Nidorf, you may contact:
Katherine Adams: kadams*alum.wellesley.edu
Monti Lawrence: mlawrence*ucla.edu
Susan Minobe: sminobe*library.ucla.edu
Driving Directions
Sylmar Detention Center
16350 Filbert St
Sylmar, CA 91342-1002
Other Resources
PDF Article: "Teens at Risk - Outreach Service to Teens in the Juvenile Justice System" Prepared by Tricia Suellentrop and Kathy McLellan. This file is part of the June 2001 President's Program: "The Key to the Captive Teen" found on the Members Only portion of the YALSA website. Used with permission.